Lying Side by Side in the Darkness
by WritingElephant
Summary: AU set in City of Ashes. Jace didn't go to see Valentine and he instead had to share a bed with Clary.


Jace stopped playing the piano when his eyelids got heavy. He didn't know the time, but he knew it must be pretty late.

Most of the time he thought himself to good for time. It didn't matter to him how late it was. He would sleep whenever he wanted; even if it was unhealthy. It was one of those things that made him feel as if he had some sort of control over things. Over the world. Over himself.

But tonight he couldn't seem to make himself care about any of that. Not after what had happened that day.

He knew he should never have let himself open up like that. Whenever he did he ended up hurting not only himself but everyone around him. Every time he let his emotions show in any way, shape, or form there was buckets full of collateral damage. But he couldn't seem to help himself when it came to her.

_Her._ Clary. She was a problem. A complication. He tried to convince himself that that was all she was.

The truth is she was a mystery. Mysteries unnerved Jace. He was so used to knowing what to do or at least looking like he did. Now he had something he wasn't so confident about and it frustrated him so he tried to blame her.

He had taken their story and tweaked it in his head. It was easy to do with her so far away from him. He convinced himself that she had come into his life out of the blue, forced him to fall in love with her, and then when things got slightly difficult she left him in the dust.

It might have been ridiculous, making her out to be the bad guy, but it made feeling sorry for himself much easier. Whereas thinking about the truth would make him incapable of feeling anything other than self-disgust and anguish and he didn't know if he could deal with feeling all that while at the same time maintaining his facade.

So, the next time he saw her he had wanted to hurt her or he thought he had. And he did. It wasn't nearly as satisfying as he imagined it would be. In fact it sort of burned. Seeing her eyes tainted with agony and hearing her yell at him like someone cry out from a deep cut did not feel good at all.

_What is it about you? Why do you have to ruin everything?_

Clary's words echoed through him making him hate himself. He had come to the conclusion that hurting Clary was not in his best interest unless he wanted some voice in his head to come and torment him for hours afterwards. So he promised himself he'd never do it again. Who know maybe tomorrow he would even try to make amends with her. But not tonight. Tonight he was tired and he just wanted to go to bed.

"Luke?" Jace called, getting up from the piano.

"Mmm" Luke slurred from the couch, looking up at Jace with sleepy eyes.

"Is there anywhere I can sleep?" Jace asked.

"Guest room is down the hall, second door on the right" Luke mumbled, rolling over onto his front.

"Thanks" Jace said.

Jace made his way down the hall; eager to plop down into bed as soon as possible. He found the door Luke had directed him to and thrust it open clumsily. His exhaustion had somehow caused his appearance to become dishevelled which made it all the more hard to regain his perfect, cocky front when he realised Clary was sitting on the bed in the guest room.

She was sitting cross-legged, bent over her notebook with clusters of red hair falling in her face. When she looked up to see Jace standing her doorway eyes widened in surprise or perhaps horror; Jace couldn't tell which. Before she could say anything Jace fired something out of his mouth at the speed of light.

"Sorry! Luke sent me in here to sleep" he muttered, hurriedly.

These pathetic, awkward words certainly didn't match Jace's usual floorless demeanour, but he was tired and caught off guard. And not to mention that totally annoying and addictive thing about Clary that made it so much harder to pretend anymore.

When he saw Clary's eyebrows raise he wanted to slap himself. He must've sounded like a weirdo. _Luke sent me in here to sleep?_ How bloody rapey must that sound?

Clary's expression wasn't doing much to reassure him so he decided to escape as quickly as he could.

"I'll just go sleep in the living room. Sorry to bother you" He said, hoping he was repairing some of the damage he had made with his last comment.

She didn't respond in any way to his statement so he turned to leave. It was only when he had the door half way shut that she called out: "Jace, wait!"

He froze for a second-just for a second-before reopening the door. Once he was in he didn't move and neither did she. He just stood at the end of the room waiting for her to give him some indication of what she wanted from him. It was a long and tense stare until she finally spoke.

"You don't have to go" she said, her eyes still wide. "You shouldn't have to sleep in the living room. It's a big bed. There's plenty of room."

It was true. The bed was king-sized. They certainly wouldn't be squashed. But it didn't matter to Jace if this was bed was the size of three bed put together. There was something about sharing a bed with Clary that just felt so... _close._

Still, he took her up on her offer with a simple nod and started hesitantly making his way over to the bed. They kept eye contact for the whole walk there; only to be broken when Jace had to turn away and sit on the side of the bed to remove his shoes.

From the way the bed went up in down underneath him, Jace could tell Clary was moving over to make room for him. When he looked back again she had gotten under the cover and put her notebook to the side. She was still watching him.

He crawled into bed beside her, squirming uncomfortably. Usually he would take his shirt off when he went to sleep, but something told him that being shirtless wouldn't help eradicate this nasty awkwardness between him and Clary.

He looked over at Clary and was surprised to see her looking at him expectantly. For a moment he just looked back at her trying to figure out what on earth it was she wanted him to do when he realised the lamp was still on and he was the closest to the bedside table.

"Oh, sorry" he said, reaching over and fumbling with the switch on the lamp.

Then it was dark.

They didn't have to keep up their masks anymore; there was no one to see them. But somehow the tension that hung between them was just as thick as it had been before if not thicker. It made Jace's skin tingle the way it does when you get pins and needles except fainter and warmer.

The truth was the tension was coming from what they weren't saying, but they were both thinking. The thing they both knew was wrong, but wanted so badly. The thing that was dangled above their nose every second, free for the taking. But neither of them could let any of that happen. Because it was wrong even if sometimes when they were as close as they were now it was really hard to remember why.

So, they lay there, side by side, in silence. Neither one knowing if the other was asleep or not. Both just waiting for sleep to come. Until they couldn't bare it anymore.

Clary was the first to brake.

"Jace?" she whispered, her voice soft.

"Mmm?" Jace responded, sleepily.

Jace listened as Clary took a shuddering breath. She shut her eyes tightly and pursed her lips. She lay there silently for so long Jace thought she might have fallen asleep, until finally she said the words that he wasn't sure he deserved.

"I'm sorry for shouting at you today" she murmured. "It wasn't your fault. I was just upset and you were there so I kind of just blew up at you. Sorry."

Her words weren't mocking or ironic sounding. Jace had no doubt that they were sincere, but he did think that they were out of place. _He_ should've been the one apologising. What Clary had said was true. He did always ruin everything. He didn't know why; maybe he was just cursed.

If he was a better person he might have told her that, but he was far too vain. He would rather just take her remorse than admit to his own. It would certainly be easier for both of them to feel better if they didn't go into lengthy details of earlier's events.

So, instead of telling her what a monster he really was he just said; "It's fine" and let them both fall silent again. This silence was a great relief from the last one. It was no longer awkward or heavy. The air had been cleared. But despite this there was something inside of Jace that just wasn't satisfied so he decided to keep the conversation going.

"Clary?"

"Yeah?"

"What was it like growing up as a mundane? Normal, I mean?" The words were out of his mouth before he even knew they were coming. He had meant to ask her something more casual; not something he actually wanted to know about. Not something he had been wondering about ever since he was a little boy.

He hopped she hadn't heard him. He wanted to keep her talking, but about subjects a whole lot lighter than that. Unfortunately, he had no such luck.

"I-I'm not sure" she stammered.

Jace could tell from her wavering tone that his question had caught her off guard. Well, there was satisfaction in that at least

"It was nice?" she sounded as if she was asking a question. "No. That's not true. Not really. Honestly it was kind of boring."

Jace laughed because although he couldn't seem to find anything humorous in her words he knew that there must be something ironic in there somewhere. She laughed a long with him, but her laugh was shaky and timid. Jace doubted she even wanted to laugh at all.

"Well, at least I was never bored." Jace snickered, shaking his head.

"No..." Clary agreed, sounding more genuinely enthused now. "How about you? What was it like growing up special?"

"Shouldn't you know?" Jace asked, confused.

He looked over at her to see her shrug and look down at her hands. His eyebrows raised in surprise.

"You don't think you're special?" he asked.

"Well, not like you at least" she said, still refusing to look at him.

"That is really bloody outrageous!" he exclaimed, placing a hand on his forehead. "_You_ not special? What a load of shit."

He meant it. Anyone who could turn his whole life upside down and make him question everything the way she had must be pretty remarkable.

Clary didn't respond to what he said, but he heard her suck in a deep breath. And once again they lay together in silence. They lay so close, but Jace wanted her closer. He wanted to see if held her for long enough that they could merge into one being.

But that was wrong. So he stayed put.

He supposed they should both just go to sleep, but he first needed to deal with one thing that he knew he would make it hard to fall asleep unless he got it out of the way.

"Clary... what were you going to say earlier. Before Simon came in?" he asked.

He looked over at Clary and saw her jaw drop open. She looked over at him, her eyes glistening in the darkness. She locked eyes with him for one short moment before quickly tearing them away and refocusing on the roof. He thought he might have even heard her choke up a little.

"Does that even matter now?" she whispered, with a voice like smooth broken glass.

"It does to me." He said, nodding his head.

He wondered why she seemed to be on the brink of tears. Was it this electric heaviness in the air what hurt her? Whatever it was he hoped she didn't actually start crying. He didn't think he could handle not snatching her up into his arms if she did.

She wasn't going to answer his question. That was clear from the way she had turned away from him. Maybe he shouldn't have asked at all. He supposed there was nothing to left to do except try and get some sleep.

Or at least that was what he thought. As he lay there with his eyes shut he felt another tiny hand wrap around his own. His eyes sprang open in shock. He opened his mouth to say something; anything, but no words came out. The slight weight of her hand on his immobilized him and he could do nothing, but wait to see what she did next.

All at once he realized her actions were an answer to his former question and he sucked in another breath. He forgot everything about how he was supposed to look, everything about what he was supposed to make her think and rolled over to look at her through the darkness. His eyes held longing and vulnerability. Two emotions he would usually never let anyone see.

He knew Clary noticed when her eyes filled with tears and her hand tightened around his.

"Oh Jace..." she moaned, her voice desperate, but at the same time utterly hopeless.

What she did next didn't exactly shock him, but it jolted him. It set him on fire in different places all over his body. She reached out and pulled him into her by the back of his neck then kissed him. He ripped her arm as if to steady himself and wound his other arm around her waist pulling her as close to him as she could get. He felt wetness against his cheeks and he wasn't sure if it was his tears or hers, but he didn't care. All he had room for in his head was the fact that he was kissing her and she was kissing him.

They didn't go any further than kissing that night; they couldn't risk breaking the spell. They simply clung to each other praying that tomorrow would never come and they could just stay as they were. Entwined in each other's arms.


End file.
